


Sentimentality

by deflowercrown



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Free Verse, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Romance, Rough Sex, Size Difference, implied BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 16:52:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deflowercrown/pseuds/deflowercrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi offered his heart not to the military, not to the government, not even to the King—but to his Commander.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentimentality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eggobang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggobang/gifts).



He wakes up to warmth enveloping him in its heat, soaking into his skin and lighting him from the inside. The sun peers down at them from the windows, bathing their makeshift home (just a too-small room with an oak desk and empty drawers) in light softer than the touch on his hip. There is a heavy weight at his back, too large arms wrapped around his waist, securing him like an anchor as the chain of another’s legs entangle his own. Strangely—Levi notes as he sinks deeper, as he extends his hand out, touches the icy cool sheet of the untouched side of the bed—he allows himself to remain trapped.

He remembers a different time, where two sturdy weights on his hips and blades in his hands were once a knife too dull to carve bread and pockets empty of morals and coins. His alabaster skin shone in the night, glowing against the fine-tooth comb of his ribs and the wiry bones beneath his delicate wrist. Nights were colder then: only the flickering embers of desire in men’s eyes to warm him in the bricked alleys behind taverns, the ringing sound of gold clattering to the floor and warm drip-drop of thick white snaking down into his lips and stinging his eyes. The stares he received around town ruined him, hollowed him out, empty like the scraps of dry bread crust he scrounged behind bakeries.

He remembers one night, the coldest in ways beyond temperature. His hair had been longer then, tendrils hanging along his shoulders, gnarled roots that took hold as he’d lay in the dirt and soot. (And god, there’d been so much then:  ash clung to him like a second skin—the plague brought fear in the people, and what people _feared_ …) Warmth envelops him, a red trickle that soaks into his skin and stains his fingers like the fruits he’d swindle off carts, their seeds rubies to a poor, starving not-quite-man, not quite-boy. It’d been too much for him: one yank of his hair, one throbbing ache in his jaw, one cheapskate who took too long, too much. And with a 1-2-3 motion of his knife, he slices away a life and snatches bloodied wings that provide him an uncomfortable, seeping warmth as he walks, the drip-drop of thick congealing drops… drops his sullied bread knife with a clatter—and leaves.

He doesn’t remember how long he walks, how he ends up in some alleyway or another. The same men who coated his skin in their thin white film and marked him as untouchable—they cleaned him and handed him a sharper knife. When a boy with two swords paints a black X on the door, locks up the infection where no one can see or touch or feel the rotten tooth of the King’s city and when that boy strikes a match to hide away screams and famine, a bloodied green cape becomes a badge of honor. And the men who spat his name and dirtied his heart with their hands, they herald him a hero, and Levi, the starving son of a harlot, who followed his late mother’s footsteps—he finds a reason to live.

He doesn’t remember when exactly, but his hair skirts just past his shoulder blades by the time Levi is crowned a king of the capital’s underbelly, the festering, deepest reaches of the inner wall where only the elite kill for a living. He braids his hair now, a small noose that hangs down his back (and isn’t that just so _perfect_? he thinks to himself now). He rules with impassive eyes and a heart to match, an unyielding force to the fools that try to discredit and dethrone him daily. By now, he’s reached the point where he can pick and choose between jobs. He's so good at what he does that he has the luxury of choosing whose doorstep Death will visit and take, kicking and screaming. He craves the cooling warmth of life pumping and then fading to a stop that follows a kill, loves the high risk of working in daylight. The rush of power brings color to dead skin, and it intoxicates him, ensnares him with whispered promises and outstretched greedy hands. The hair covers his eyes.

He cannot see the same anymore. He cannot see anything, only red.

This— _this_ , Levi echoes, losing himself in an old(er) man’s sentimental reminiscing—he remembers with certainty. The creeping sun shines too bright to hide behind the thin curtains of their quarters, and it reminds him of a bleeding sunset that touches too close to the landscape and its red rays reveal his intentions to all it hits. The light cloaks him in her light, the shine of his dagger reflecting along the glint in his eyes.

His target is big, he’s heard, with a build like the Wall itself and the reputation to follow: the golden boy of a family of silver spoons, the top of his squad in all degrees, and a rising, glimmering star in the military that threatens to shine too bright… What his clients see (or rather, fear) in this piercing blue gaze, Levi doesn’t know, but he does know by the steady drumming of his pulse and itching fingertips that he is ready. And so he strikes…

At nothing.

Levi’s blade strikes air; eyes blink in the stained daylight and see nothing. He takes a quick breath and then loses it. His dagger clatters to the ground, making a loud ringing noise that mixes with the hurried beat of his rabbit heart and the thrum of blood in his ears. There is a far too large arm around his waist, and a hand snakes around his neck, applying a dangerous pressure that darkens the red glimmer of sun around the edges. His eyes water, and his sun bleeds black. His feet do not reach the ground, and he feels at his ears a breath—god, the burning in his lungs, he’d kill just to…

“ _Breathe_ ,” a voice commands near the nape of his neck, and that hand leaves the grip of his neck (leaves some bruises Levi would touch reverently and ghost his own fingertips over) and reaches back to grab at Levi’s braid, using it like a leash to keep this wild dog at bay. And Levi does breathe, and then he struggles and groans and tries to slither out, the snake that he is. But his target’s grip is absolute, does not budge, allows him to breathe only because _he_ decides Levi may live a while longer. And Levi wishes, just for a moment, that he’d stubbornly held his breath.

Now Levi realizes the pretty penny his customers had been willing to pay for the head of Erwin Smith, Lance Corporal of the military’s Scouting Legion. He’d only wished they’d mentioned there was actually something _inside_ that pretty head of his before he tried to sprinkle its insides on the cold dirt beneath them. After a long time of thrashing and threatening to bite off fingers (amongst other parts of Smith’s anatomy) Levi ceases his struggling. They spend an infuriating amount of time in their ‘embrace’ before Smith speaks again: “What is your name, boy?”

And how dare he— _how dare he_ , Levi snarls—call this king a boy. He’s about to bite some scathing remark an older Levi cannot remember or fathom now (just that it was fucking good, knowing himself as a foul-mouthed teen), but Smith is smart, knows the wash of anger burning up the skin he touches. He yanks back on Levi’s braid, exposing his vulnerable jugular to the bleeding slice of the sun’s sharp, shining light, dividing his skin in light and darkness (and even the light is tinged with red). And to this day, Levi still remembers the tight coil in his stomach, the flash of arousal that sparks up his spine that surprises even himself, as an impassive, powerful voice repeats at his ear, “A _name_.”

And stunned, he can only say “Levi.” And Levi knows he is gone the moment Smith releases his hair, lets his feet dangle to the ground. And the bastard doesn’t even back away or reach for his twin blades. He just stands there (the blood leaks down from the sky bathing his golden hair in a hellish glow), and that _fucker_ smiles at Levi’s knife in his hands and still knows he is the one in control. When Smith offers him a job and looks into his eyes for the first time and a voice he doesn’t recognize as his answers back, Levi knows he is lost because now—now, he has a reason to die.

The first thing Smith does is cut his hair. Says just a few inches can make a difference between life and death, and Levi wants to open his mouth and mutter Smith must have that same issue with women—but there’s two calloused, quietly strong hands at the nape of his neck, one brandished with two sharp blades and the other gripping his only remnants of his past life and—Levi stays quiet for a long time.

(Smith lets him keep the braid, still tied by a cord of twine and a heavy burden in Levi's hands. He sneaks away from his training camp that night—or maybe Smith lets him go, he thinks now, as he hadn't seen the fair-haired man prowl the grounds at night as he usually did. He goes to the pile of ash that used to be his home and buries it there, next to where his mother died screaming in the cleansing, fiery purges years ago. And Smith doesn't ask him about it, not for another five years—and he's _Erwin_ by then—after too much of Hanji's wine and a trail of kisses along the nape of his neck where the ghost of his hair used to hang).

Levi returns to his barracks with raw knuckles and torn lips most nights. He sneers: the others fear him, and what people _feared_ , they hurt and tore down and erased. But Levi is no stranger to this, and after a taste of the power he had, he knows how to defend what little is his. And when complaints reach Smith’s ears—about the mangy recruit who’d had no military training and the markings of a thug and drunkard and harlot— mysteriously, these naysayers go unheard and Smith’s smile never wavers. The strange man trains at private hours, a vigilant presence guarding their fort, and Levi realizes on the third night that he spends watching Smith breathe white fog into the night air that Smith _allows_ himself to be watched, can see into the dark canopy of the tree where something wild hides and sees hungry eyes staring down at him. And on the fourth night, Levi joins him.

When Levi graduates from training and gets his green cloak and wings, Smith salutes to him quickly, a hand over his heart and looks down and into him with such piercing blue that it drowns and consumes Levi. The spell is broken as he then claps him on the shoulder good-naturedly and whispers something unintelligible that he can’t hear over the roar of his classmates’ cheering, and before he can turn his head and ask again, a hand ghosts the nape of his neck, and Smith is gone.

The screams and crunching sounds of bones and flesh and the pitter patter of red that hits the ground all fade into black noise, and Levi is dancing in the air. His gear and blades are extensions of the very sinews of his body, and he can feel every slice into the backs of their necks. His gas runs low, and more often than not, he has to ricochet himself off of walls or hook into meaty shoulders to send giants tumbling to the ground. He feels a dull ache throbbing through his body: the belts that hug the scarred and lithe form of his body are too tight, as always, and the strain in his muscles clouds his vision. But at least the pain makes him feel _alive_. And he keeps going for what feels like _years_ , slicing and flying and bleeding until there’s a hand on his shoulder. And Levi is kneeled to the ground, stabbing repeatedly at a rapidly evaporating Titan (and crying for the first time he remembers).

And Erwin holds him, and Levi can’t sleep alone anymore after that.

The first time Erwin kisses Levi, all he tastes is old scotch. Levi never liked the taste, but he thought it was never too late to start. Sooner or later, the amber becomes transparent waves, and Levi tastes salt with each resounding glide of his lips. Erwin weeps with him, a sorry sound that shatters Levi to his very core, and he hears his then-Corporal chant into the wind the names of each man he sent to die—for glory, for honor, for  _him—_ yet never made it back home. And _god_ , Erwin breathes, the looks wives sent him, the wails of mothers, and the questions of children he didn't know how to answer anymore... And, wrapping his partner in the walls of his arms, Levi remembers the crescent moon above them, making him glow and shine (and Erwin is a blind man that paws his way through darkness towards this light, but even the light is tinged with red), and thinks about the scent of death that seemed to never leave either of them.

There is life at the nape of his neck, a breath that fans out and tickles the shorn hair at the base of his head. He rests his head on the unforgiving oak of Erwin’s desk and spreads his legs. He’s a Commander now: gets a cushy office and a cushy job that means paperwork, late nights, and kissing ass to the people who fund his expeditions (but really means fucking Levi in secret and loving Levi on the battlefield where no one can say anything or live long enough to tell). And Levi, he never sees _Erwin_ anymore, not as much as he needs him to be there, a wall of muscle at his backside and a wall of arms to protect him when he cries. He can only have _Erwin_ on missions together because when they're home—and Levi struggles to say the word—they're in the limelight of the politics inside the military base, and what would people _say_ , after all, because Erwin is his _boss_ , his _Commander_ but—

Erwin is different, fucks him into the wall and rattles the door so hard it's a wonder no one knows they've been fucking for years—and fills him up so big that Levi can only choke in pleasure and writhe and try not to scream and spill his seed, not so _soon_ , not _now_.

(The size always surprised him, no matter how many time he steals the _Commander_ away from paperwork and begs him to make everyone know why he _comes_ to visit him so often. And it always steals away his breath until each motion of his lips and each cant of his hips is a reverent prayer and a back-alleyed sinner's wanton cry for _more_ ). 

Erwin is different because he can do all these things, but bottom line, Levi controls the show, decides when and how Erwin will take him. And Levi doesn't realize how much he needed that, after all he's been through and—

(Some nights, Erwin lets Levi tie him up and take him the way he’s always dreamt of. He rides him, agonizingly slowly, until tears prick at his eyes, and each breath is a shudder. And Erwin’s fingers tremble on Levi’s hips. And words threaten to wrench themselves from his aching heart just before his orgasm is ripped from him with a sudden jolt of Erwin’s hips).

Erwin is just _different_ , in all the ways Levi needs, because he can see the twitch in his hips or the flush in his ears and wordlessly give him what he needs, not what he thinks Levi wants but what he _needs_ ; and what Levi needs, Erwin wants.

Blunt nails scratch along his sides and grab at his hips hard enough to bruise (and Levi buried the runt of his handpicked litter today and _god_ , _fuck_ , does he blame himself), and the wood of the desk is an unforgiving friction against his aching erection. Today, he will come only from Erwin's cock, only when Erwin _allows_ him to come. And he doesn’t want soft and sweet, doesn't deserve that. He needs Erwin to take him with minimal preparation and fuck him into this desk until he can finally sleep undisturbed, if only from the exhaustion that follows.

The first time Levi kisses Erwin, it leaves him breathless, and there’s a hand at the nape of his neck pulling him closer and hotter, and he pulls back at his stupid bolo tie, bringing him down to his level. And they’re covered in Titan’s blood that evaporates with each crackling kiss they share, and his new green cloak (the one he earned) is stained with Erwin’s blood. And Levi almost lost him that time, fuck, fuck, _fuck_. And Levi kisses him harder because Erwin was right—that insufferable bastard, damn him, damn him—about inches and lengths.

(The Titan never saw him coming).

Levi remembers the exact moment he _knew_. They’re stationed inside the Walls again, in that odd lull between missions. (Erwin's not Commander yet, and Levi is still the shadow that follows him wherever he goes). It’s not a break, per se, but a needed respite for their team’s mental health nonetheless. Levi gets restless, needs the pumping of his heart and the adrenaline coursing through his veins and the ache in his muscles. So he and Erwin spar. By this time, they’re equals, and they match each other blow for blow. Panting, Levi realizes (feels blood drip down his nose) that  he might need Erwin the same way he needs the wind whipping in his hair and a blade in both hands and—distracted, Levi finds himself pinned to the ground. Strangely—Levi notes as he cradles Erwin’s face with his bruised hands (that connect to bony wrists that connect to sore arms that connects to a panting chest that connects to a swelling heart) and kisses him—strangely, he allows himself to be trapped.

Levi had long ago sworn off dangerous emotions or attachments, around the same time his home collapsed in on itself as the flames ate at its very foundations and he earned more coins from swallowing a man's seed and his own pride than stealing. But of course, Erwin, his _Commander_ (and with age and his title as Lance Corporal, he'd learned how to say it not so bitterly), had always been his only exception in all degrees of his life. Almost overnight, Levi began to take his role in the military more seriously, pressing a fist close to his heart every time he passed by Erwin around the base or even as he entered his office.

Strangely, Commander Erwin was the only high-ranking officer whom Levi offered this courtesy, and it took a few weeks before the dots connected. In the middle of the mess hall, Levi sat, covered in grime from cleaning the barracks of the troops for what seemed like the nth time this week—a sign he was terribly restless, and Levi was about two more cleaning sessions away from complaining to Erwin about it. He remembers spotting his commanding officer joking alongside some of the newer recruits to their small sector devoted to recon missions.

He remembers staring at the table of rookies blankly for several minutes before the now pale-faced and solemn group of boys silenced themselves. Levi could see Erwin's polite smile all the way from his spot beside Hanji spilling tea all over herself as she recalled what her newest "babies" had been up to in the lab. And Levi stood, once his Commander was close enough, and saluted, knuckles turning even whiter as his hand squeezed. Now Erwin knew, and Levi could see it plainly in his softened eyes, in the small private smile he shared only with his Lance Corporal.

Levi offered his heart not to the military, not to the government, not even to the King—but to his Commander.

And his Commander (his _Erwin_ ) salutes right back at him, in the middle of the mess hall... before he inches closer and places a hand on the nape of his neck and bends down to fill every corner of Levi's swelling heart with each press of his lips.

He wakes up to lips at his back and heat all around him, a tight wall of arms wrapped around him, encircling him in their quiet strength, and Levi cranes his neck behind him to look into piercing blue and simply _loves_.

**Author's Note:**

> Aah, thank you so much for sticking to the end of baby's first fic! I had started writing this only to put down all of my headcanons for Erwin/Levi in one convenient doc, but then it became this? cradles face and blushes. Sorry the timeline of the fic is so ambiguous and out-of-order; that was actually something I did on purpose, but just assume almost all of it is Pre-Canon.
> 
> Anyway, shout out to khalyeezy for dealing with my gross sobbing and helping me tag this (and another shout out to my rp partner for also dealing with my gross sobbing).
> 
> [EDIT: Aah! I received some beautiful, gorgeous fan art!! Check it out here while I try not to cry: http://nashina.tumblr.com/post/56840949656 ]


End file.
